hemanthp wrote:
Contemporary accounts of the life of Charlemagne, crowned emperor by the pope in 800, show that the founder of the Carolingian renaissance in literature and the arts was himself an illiterate driven by his desire for a civilized state to reform education in his kingdom.
a) that the founder of the Carolingian renaissance in literature and the arts was himself an illiterate driven by his desire
b) that the founder of the Carolingian renaissance in literature as well as in the arts was himself an illiterate and also driven by his desire
c) that the founder of the Carolingian renaissance in literature and the arts was himself an illiterate and that he was driven by his desire
d) that the founder of the Carolingian renaissance in literature as well as in the arts was himself an illiterate and that he was driven by his desire
e) that the founder of the Carolingian renaissance in literature and the arts was himself an illiterate and that his desire drove him
TooLong150 wrote:
Hi Mike,
Can you explain the difference between A, C, and D in this SC problem; I still don't see how they are different.
Thanks!
Dear
TooLong150I am happy to respond to your p.m.
I'm a big fan of Charlemagne, but this is a poor quality SC question. First of all, the phrase "
that the founder of the Carolingian renaissance in literature" is
identical in all five answer choices and
should NOT be part of the underlined section: this just makes the question unnecessarily confusing. The splits are minuscule, not deeply meaningful. In many ways, this questions falls abysmally short of the high standards set by GMAT SC.
The central revelation of the contemporary accounts that, somewhat ironically, Charlemagne was an illiterate who has this desire to reform education. There's no reason to separate that into to "
that" clauses, which is what
(C) and
(D) do; that's unnecessarily wordy. The phrasing in
(A) is more elegant. Furthermore, in
(D), there's no reason to say "
in literature as well as in the arts" ---- that introduces a funny distinction between them, whereas "
literature and the arts" just lumps them together.
In a high quality GMAT SC question, the incorrect answers would not have so little separating them from the OA. If you were confused by this question, don't interpret that as a failing on your part. This is a poor question. Here's a much better question, for practice:
https://gmat.magoosh.com/questions/3597Mike
_________________
Mike McGarry
Magoosh Test PrepEducation is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. — William Butler Yeats (1865 – 1939)